As a user of a rocker recliner begins to move or project the ottoman (also known as a leg rest or foot rest) from a closed, stowed condition in which the recliner is fully upright, the person's feet almost immediately leave contact with the floor. Experience has shown that as the act of reclining proceeds, it becomes progressively more important for the confident and trouble-free enjoyment of the recliners, that the capability of the seating unit to rock, relative to its base become restricted and then prevented. To this end, the best-designed rocker recliners, include rocker locks which limit forward rocking in order to prevent the lower edge of an upholsted board of the ottoman from being driven into the floor because the chair occupant has shifted too much of their weight forwards while turning the mechanism-operating handle (or otherwise initiating thrusting of the ottoman). Additionally or alternatively, rocker locks are provided which, as reclining proceeds, more or less progressively act to prevent or restrict rearward reclinability, so that the user who shifts their weight backwards more vigorously than is best, but sill within reason, will not get a scare as they are rotating backward and their feet are elevating, too quickly for them to feel comfortable and maintain their composure.
Action Industries, Inc. has produced and marketed several generations of rocker recliners (also known as reclining chairs), which have rocker locks. Various designers have contributed to the mechanical and aesthetic designs of those chairs, and those designs have evolved with the passage of time. Several prior patents provide convenient `snapshots` of how some of those chairs were provided with rocker locks beginning in respective design generations.
The U.S. patent of Rogers, Jr. et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,730,585, which issued May 1, 1973, shows an early Action rocker recliner which was sometimes known as the #6000 recliner. In FIG. 4A of that patent, a side view of rocker lock is shown as the chair is in its intermediate (TV) position. Three-position recliners have an upright position, a TV or intermediate position, and a fully reclined position, respectively, in which the back is upright and the ottoman is stowed, the back remains upright or nearly so and the ottoman is fully projected, and the back is tilted down and the ottoman remains fully projected and is somewhat elevated. In many designs, as the chair is further reclined from the TV to the fully reclined position, the seat translates forward, upward, and tilts rearward. These actions more stabily position the user's center of gravity over the chair base, and reduce the clearance from a wall needed for tilting down the chair back without its upper rear edge striking the wall. Some chair bases are designed to sit directly on a floor (whether or not the floor is carpeted), while, on others, a rotary turntable attached to the underside of the base, without necessitating other changes, upgrades the rocker recliner to being a swivel rocker recliner. Whereas rocker recliners having handle-operated mechanisms are very popular, in order to appeal to an even wider of potential users, various designers have adapted handle-operated mechanisms, or designed new ones `from scratch`, where pulling on a ring, pulling a lever or pushing a button to release a catch, or rocking an electrical switch starts a motor, in order to allow or cause the chair mechanism to operate.
In the '585 patent, the rocker lock is located to the front of the base and cam (i.e. rocker) assemblies. An advantage of the rocker lock shown in the '585 patent is that it offered uninhibited rockability (so-called free-rock) when the chair was in its closed (i.e. upright, fully erect) position, because there was in this position no contact of the rocker lock structure with the chair base. If and when the rocker lock shown in the '585 patent worked improperly, it was because the wheel of the lock would jump-over the `catcher` structure provided for trapping it, or the wheel would so vigorously strike the catcher as to loosen or disconnect the catcher from the chair base.
A succeeding generation is depicted in the U.S. patent of Mizelle, U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,701, which issued on Mar. 20, 1984, has sometimes been referenced as the Mizelle version. While the rocker lock shown in Mizelle avoided the `jump over the catcher problem`, in various commercial iterations, with wear, some dissatisfactions arose due to restrictedness or sluggishness of rockability of the chair in its closed position, wear causing flat spots on the wheels, severe rubbing-together of lock parts, bending of lock parts, and damage to the chair base or cams.
The present inventor was involved in the design of a next-succeeding generation of rocker lock for Action recliner chairs. This rocker lock, sometimes referred to as the Pine version, is shown in the U.S. patent of Pine, U.S. Pat. No. 4,601,513, that issued on Jul. 22, 1986. The designing of this lock coincided with an evolutionary redesigning of a basic reclining chair mechanism, known as the 1800, which Action used (and uses) in the construction of many of its motion chairs. That rocker lock was intended to have the best features of its predecessors, while avoiding their shortcomings in commercial iterations. It has been largely successful in achieving those objections, particularly in commercial iterations in which the mechanism parts that are cut, stamped, pierced, boxed and bent from steel plate, are made from at least 7-gage stock, so as to avoid bending of the landing links.
In all three of the prior generations of rocker locks referred to above, the locks are center-mounted, which inherently introduces torsional stresses on chair frame members including wooden cross-members, wooden dowels, wooden corner blocks, staples and glue. Side-to-side `jogging` or `racking` of the chair frame sides as the lock is activated is practically impossible to avoid. Ways to mitigate those problems are known, such as by replacing small wooden corner blocks with full-length metal corner brackets screwed and bolted to the wooden frame.
Also, in all three of the prior generations of rocker locks referred to above, the rocker locks were (or are) `passive` in their operational relationship with the side linkages of the motion chair mechanism. They are designed to lose motion as the torque tube is rotated for attaining the TV position, without adding any positive force or input to the side linkages to help the side linkages to achieve the TV position.
Particularly in the Action 1800 mechanism, as provided with the aforementioned Pine version of the rocker lock, in certain particularly exuberantly upholstered versions, the front end of the chair can exhibit a condition known as `weakness`, denoting a lack of robustness in completeness and alacrity of thrusting and retraction of the ottoman. Such weakness is most likely to be evident in a style where the front end is a fully upholstered pad-over, tuck-under chaise which acts something like a big rubber band, the more it is stretched-out or extended, the more restoration force is stored tending to retract the front end to a more relaxed, closed position.
The Action 1800 mechanism with the Pine version rocker lock is a handle-operated, spring-assisted mechanism. A certain spring or springs which are provided make it easier for the user to rotate the operating handle, for causing a knuckling (or toggling) action of the front end, as the ottoman is extended from its closed position. As the handle is rotated, the ottoman board moves away from the seat and starts to rise. As the handle continues to rotate, the ottoman board continues to trance out and up, until, almost at the end of the handle rotation, the ottoman board levels out and continues to extend further outwards, but stops rising. It is during this latter phase of handle rotation that knuckling or toggling of the mechanism occurs, such that the ottoman is able to support weight of a user's feet and legs acting downwardly, although a force pulling or pushing rearward on the ottoman can restrict its outward travel and may even prevent its attaining or maintaining its fully thrust position (and therefore the chair from achieving the TV position).